March 16, 2018

Students, Faculty Excitedly Await Various Spring Break Plans

Teresa Masteller

Many students and faculty members at Manchester University are excitedly planning vacations and activities for the long-awaited Spring Break that officially starts once class is dismissed on Friday, March 16.

Student Colin Stephen will be spending his Spring Break in Colorado for what he calls “some hiking and cultural enjoyment.”

Like Stephen, other students are also making their way out of the Midwest. Delaney McKesson is heading all the way to the West Coast. “I will be flying out to Los Angeles to visit my friend who is going to school at the University of Southern California,” McKesson said. “I'll be there Saturday through Wednesday so he can show me around USC, and so I can get a feel of a bigger school on the West Coast.” She also hopes to act as a proper tourist and visit Universal Studios, as well as the Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

Also traveling to California, Associate Professor of English Stacy Erickson-Pesetski will be spending the second half of her Spring Break at the Shakespeare in Prisons Conference (SIPS), which will be held March 22–25 at the Old Globe in San Diego. “In addition to catching up with a lot of the other prison arts practitioners I have met over the years, I will go to workshops, presentations, and film screenings,” Erickson-Pesetski said. “Since many of the people at the SIPS are either actors, theater directors, prison administrators and even ex-offenders who participated in Shakespeare programs––there are few professors like me.”

Spring Break is also used as a time to see distant family members. Senior Logan Williams is taking a plane to Arizona to visit his sister and brother-in-law. “I am looking forward to seeing them and enjoying the warm weather!” Williams said.

Junior Brianna Hill will be road tripping with a group of her friends to spend five days in the famous Spring Break spot, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “We are hoping to make a few pit stops along the way; Nashville is one of our priorities as well as Maryville, Tennessee, in order to visit my great grandma,” Hill said. “While we are in Fort Lauderdale, we plan on making trips to the Everglades, Miami and many other destinations. I would also love to go parasailing while I am there.”

Hill wants to use this Spring Break as a way to relax and de-stress from the struggles of everyday university life; she also plans to ditch some screen time. “I want to spend as little as I can on technology, and I want to truly live in the moment,” Hill said. “The best memories are those spent not staring at a phone screen. I hope to make some great memories with some even better friends on Spring Break of 2018!”

Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Political Science Tara Saunders is staying close to home this Spring Break. Saunders is also staying close to her bed as she is “planning to sleep in as often as possible,” as she put it. In addition to some downtime, she’s planning to visit a friend in Chicago to go shopping for her wedding dress. “And I may try to go see friends in Bloomington,” she added.

We will only know if all these plans came to fruition when Spring Break ends, and class resumes on Monday, March 26.